AKRON, Ohio — One-time pizza shop owner Joseph Gallucci wanted a cushy job on the Cuyahoga County payroll in 2006, and to get it, he willingly corrupted one of the fundamental tenets of a democracy -- the expectation of open and fair elections.

Gallucci's skullduggery involved running a sham election challenge to then-County Auditor Frank Russo in exchange for thousands of dollars in clandestine payments and then a $67,000-a-year job on Russo's staff.

All the sordid details came out Thursday, when Gallucci testified at the corruption trial of former County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora and Michael Gabor, a former county employee accused of helping orchestrate the election scam.

Interwoven with a series of secretly recorded cellphone conversations, federal prosecutors presented evidence of Russo and his cronies scrambling to cover the tracks of their criminal scheme in a Nixonian style reminiscent of Watergate.

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The testimony and recordings also exposed the extremes that the politically fixated Russo would take to manipulate an election outcome that was never in doubt.

Gallucci, a Republican in a county dominated by Democrats, said he initially scoffed at the absurdity of the idea proposed by then-county employee J. Kevin Kelley that he file as a candidate for auditor in the 2006 election.

"I thought it was crazy," Gallucci testified.

Russo had held the auditor's job for nearly seven years by then and consistently was among the top vote-getters in the county. Gallucci, who ran a chain of pizza shops and a car wash, was unknown in political circles.

But Gallucci said he agreed to the plan, which called for him to file for the Republican primary, then drop out of the race afterward, providing Russo with an unopposed path to re-election and allowing him to avoid spending $50,000 in campaign advertising.

Russo, he said, met with him at a Holiday Inn to seal the deal, and the auditor vowed to take care of him afterward with a government job.

Gallucci said he spent about $180 for pens reading "Gallucci for Auditor" but otherwise did nothing to get himself elected. He didn't even vote for himself.

Eventually, however, the scheme changed, Gallucci said. Rather than having him drop out of the race in May, Kelley told Gallucci he needed him to stay in the race until August, by which time it would be too late for the Republicans to find a new candidate.

Gallucci said he had hoped to start work in the auditor's office much sooner than that and expressed his displeasure. To assuage him, he said, Russo agreed to pay him $4,000 per month for five months until he could begin work.

Gabor, a Russo employee and a lifelong friend of Gallucci's, acted as bagman, delivering half the payoffs in cash each month, Gallucci testified. The other half of his monthly payoffs came via checks cut by 1-888-OhioComp, a managed-care company, for "consulting services," he said.

Gallucci acknowledged he performed no work for 1-888-OhioComp. Attempts to reach the company for comment Thursday were unsuccessful. In the past, company officials have denied wrongdoing.

While he spent the cash and banked the checks, Gallucci had a change of heart in August. He no longer wanted to drop out of the race. "I wanted my mom to vote for me," he said.

But he eventually agreed to step aside, and by Nov. 29, Russo had hired him for $67,000 a year -- more than his boss was making at the time and $17,000 more than he had expected.

Five months later, recordings captured Russo and his staff panicking about a Plain Dealer reporter asking to see personnel files for an investigation of political hiring, patronage and nepotism.

Russo could be heard fretting about Gallucci becoming an issue in the story. Gallucci's job application is "really pathetic," Russo said, and could raise questions about the justification for Gallucci's large salary.

In 2010, Gallucci pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery, a crime that could send him to prison for a year or more. He is cooperating with prosecutors.

Russo also previously pleaded guilty to 21 corruption-related charges, including bribery, and faced up to 22 years in prison before he agreed to cooperate with the FBI. He is expected to testify later in the trial. Kelley also pleaded guilty to bribery and is expected to testify.

Later in the day, prosecutors focused again on Dimora and a scheme involving union official Rob Rybak, who arranged for plumbing work on Dimora's Independence home while seeking favors from the commissioner.

Live trial coverage

Follow Jimmy Dimora's trial live with The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com. We have a team of reporters covering the trial every day, providing live updates and video reports throughout. Find that coverage at cleveland.com/countyincrisis

Background on the trial

Prosecutors played recordings of phone conversations from 2008 to lay out their case.

In one call, Rybak, business manager of Plumbers Union Local 55, urged Dimora to hire two union plumbers for county jobs and to give a raise to his wife, who worked in the county's human-resources department.

Jurors listened to other recordings of calls that dealt with the hiring of the plumbers and the raise for Ryback's wife.

Jay Ross, who was the head of the county's Central Services at the time, balked at hiring the union plumbers. Dimora, according to the recordings, told then-County Administrator Dennis Madden to lean on Ross.

The commissioners eventually hired two Local 55 plumbers, Kevin Hackett and Stephen McConnell, at $31 an hour.

Dimora also was heard on several calls trying to figure out how he could get Linda Rybak a raise. In a lengthy conversation, she complained to Dimora about a woman who was recently hired at a high pay scale with no referral.

"She's got to be connected to somebody," Dimora said.

Dimora told Rob Rybak to call Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones to see if Jones would vote for the raise. Prosecutors later played a recording of a call from Kelley, who was also a friend of Dimora's, to Jones, who was up for election.

Jones expressed concern about giving the raise before the November election.